Vises are well known in the art and have evolved over the years. Further, multiple jaw vises are also known in the art and have been well received. In particular, the vises shown in the Buck patents listed above and incorporated by reference in this application as background material have been well received. These patents disclose two jaw vises that are effective and which have been used in industry for many years. However, the vises shown in the Buck patents are costly to manufacture and are costly and difficult to maintain in the field. One such difficulty in the field is that the chips produced by an associated machining operation can become lodged in the vise's actuation mechanism and can be difficult to remove from portions of the vise. This can cause considerable down time for a machining operation which can be costly. This is especially true in view of the costs associated with operating the machines in which these kinds of vises are used. Further, these costs include both machine cost for the machine being idle during this cleaning work and the labor cost associated with the operator working on non-productive work during this cleaning operation. As is known in the art, both the machining time and operator time for these kinds of machining operations are costly. Further, having one of these operations down to allow for the chip removal or cleaning of the vise also impacts the operation's production numbers.
With special reference to FIG. 3 of Buck U.S. Pat. No. 6,139,001, shown is an end sectional view of Buck's vise or work holding device 11 with a base member 12. Also shown is right movable jaw assembly 16. Jaw assembly 16 is one of the two jaws disclosed in Buck. Particular reference is taken to base member 12 which is a solid block of material wherein a central guide passage or channel 26 must be machined to form this base. More particularly, base member 12, after machining, has upwardly projecting side legs 20, 22 extending on either side of central passage 26. This longitudinally extending guide passage 26 has a generally inverted T-shaped cross-sectional configuration wherein it has an upward opening between the parallel side legs 20, 22 that is smaller than the bottom region of this passage. This guide passage is defined in part by opposed guide surfaces 28, 30 which define opposite sides of the upper portion of guide passage 26. The bottom portion of guide passage 26 is partially defined by a bottom guide surface 32 that is wider than the spacing between surfaces 28 & 30 which forms this “T” shape. As can be appreciated, passage 26 requires one or more expensive machining operations to transform a solid block of material into the disclosed T-shaped block. While other manufacturing methods could be used, each would require expensive tooling and/or machinery to produce the base. Yet even further, this method of machining block 12 makes producing multiple sizes of these vises difficult and expensive.